LOVE RESOUNDING AT SYMPHONY SPACE

Dear Friends,

Soprano Allison Charney, cellist Kajsa William-Olsson and pianist Reiko Uchida join forces for - "Love Resounding" - the inaugural concert of ‘the ARK Trio’. Their NYC concert debut will present six world premieres of compositions written for them by American composers Kim D. Sherman (The Wedding Song, Laodamiad: A Mythic Journey, Prairie Diary) and Michael Ching (Arrangements and Derangements: Interpretations of Schubert), Russian-born Dina Pruzhansky (On Love and Land) and Israeli composer/pianist Moshe Knoll (Simplicity). Take someone you love this Valentine's Day to this intimate evening of music that will touch your heart.

I am so excited about this concert coming up on February 14, 2017. I’ve had the pleasure of working with these amazing musicians before they became The ARK Trio. It promises to be a very beautiful evening, and we could all use one of those. Three of my compositions will be performed. Please join us for “Love Resounding” on February 14 at 7pm at the Leonard Nimoy Thalia at Symphony Space. I look forward to seeing you there!

Kim

About the music:

The Wedding Song was originally written for an actual wedding! Imagine that. Allison Charney premiered it for her brother’s wedding in 2001. Her father, Jordan Charney, adapted the passages in Hebrew and English from Song of Solomon. It was originally written for soprano and string quartet. This will be the premiere performance of a new arrangement for the ARK trio.

The Laodamiad: A Mythic Journey for solo cello is the adaptation of a score I wrote for a play (The Laodamiad by Chas Libretto) last spring. The play tells the story of Laodamia, the first widow of the Trojan War. I worked with cellist Kajsa William-Olsson as I wrote the music, exploring themes, sounds and storytelling through music. My idea for the music was to create themes for the main characters, as well as themes for love, fate and the underworld. I then transposed each theme into every mode (Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aolian, Locrian.) Once I had a version of each theme in every mode, I made further variations of each modal version in retrograde, inverted, and inverted retrograde, a technique normally associated with Schoenberg’s 12-tone System. I used the different modal variations and inversions to reflect different aspects of character and story. A theme of love would transform to despair when it was played backwards. A hero’s theme would become broken when inverted. The Laodamiad: A Mythic Journey utilizes the musical materials I created for the play, and reflects the structure of the story starting with Laodamia walking into the ocean in despair, and ending with the final scene thirty years later, next to a tree that she planted to honor her late husband. I loved writing this piece, and then transforming it into a concert piece for Ms. William-Olsson. She is an incredible cellist and an equally incredible human.

 A Prairie Diary a song cycle for soprano, piano and cello, came about after Darrah Cloud and I wrote a music-theater adaptation of Willa Cather’s first novel, “O Pioneers!” One of the most challenging aspects of the project was how to use vocal music in the context of the stage adaptation. The songs became part of a “Prairie Greek Chorus” which threads throughout the play. Many songs were tried and then rejected from the final version. It is those “rejected” songs that became the inspiration for this song cycle, although two of the songs (“Transformation Song” and “I Call Your Name”) are still used in the theatrical production.  Settings of three poems by Willa Cather complete the cycle. The material in the text evokes images and feelings of my own roots in the Midwest. I wanted to give a voice to the vastness, the sky and the land, and to give a sound to the feeling of belonging to the dream of this country.  And always, these words from “O Pioneers!” rang through my thoughts as I wrote the music:  

“For the first time, perhaps, since that land emerged from the waters of geologic ages, a human face was set toward it with love and yearning.  It seemed beautiful to her, rich and strong and glorious.  Her eyes drank in the breadth of it, until her tears blinded her.  Then the Genius of the Divide, the great, free spirit which breathes across it, must have bent lower than it ever bent to a human will before.  The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman.” ––Willa Cather

A Prairie Diary was originally written for piano, clarinet and baritone voice. I then transposed the cycle for Allison Charney, who has sung the piano and clarinet version many times, including on a 1998 recording with Ben Loeb for the DSC label. In 2016-2017, I removed the clarinet part and created a new part for cello and restructured the order of the movements for the ARK Trio.